I was really excited when the stadium tour enters the players’ changing room stage. It’s the highlight of the tours followed by walking along the touchlines of Old Trafford.
I always wondered how the Manchester United’s players’ dressing room looked like; what’s in there, who sits where, where are the warm up benches, shower place and where exactly did Beckham’s flying boot incident happened.
It’s always nice to get behind the scenes to see and discover what the team does before and after the match.
The photo below is how the dressing room looked like. I took this from where Gary Neville is sitting, at the corner.
The entrance is on the left of the photo. When you enter the room, on the left there’s another door to the shower and warm up room, and then that’s where Gary Neville, Berbatov and van Der Sar sits.
On the other corner at the right of the photo sits Wayne Rooney, Ronaldo and Giggs.
As you can see there, there’s a big LCD screen. Sir Alex will connect his laptop during his pre-match briefing, loads up a CD with the opposition team’s details (he has teams from all over the world?) and then start playing with the magnetic pieces on the white board on the right of the screen.
That’s basically laying out the formation we should play for the day.
Then he’ll ask a few players who are key people in set pieces like Ronaldo, Ferdinand and Vidic to one side and start briefing them what exactly they should do. Things like where they should be standing, where and when to attack/defend the ball and the opponents weak link during set pieces are all discussed here.
After the pre-match briefing, the players get ready to enter the pitch to warm up.
At least now (after 17 years), I can for myself where all the above are happening before the match.
Next Up : The Tunnel where the food fight with Arsenal happened.
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